I started track and field when I was 12 and didn't get to an Olympic Games until I was nearly 23. By any stretch of the imagination that's a very long apprenticeship.

To anyone who has started out on a long campaign believing that the gold medal was destined for him, the feeling when, all of a sudden, the medal has gone somewhere else is quite indescribable.

All pressure is self-inflicted. It's what you make of it or how you let it rub off on you.

Competing is exciting and winning is exhilarating, but the true prize will always be the self-knowledge and understanding that you have gained along the way.

The nine inches right here; set it straight and you can beat anybody in the world.

Vision is a romantic thing. We have got into 'talent identification'. I am much more interested in passion - finding people who are really excited about doing something.

Sport is a universal language, building more bridges between people than anything else I can think of.

Tomorrow is another day, and there will be another battle!

If you lived in Sheffield and were called Sebastian, you had to learn to run fast at a very early stage.

World records are only borrowed.

Blink and you miss a sprint. The 10,000 meters is lap after lap of waiting. Theatrically, the mile is just the right length: beginning, middle, end, a story unfolding.

Listen to the trees talking in their sleep, ' she whispered, as he lifted her to the ground. 'What nice dreams they must have!

I drink to make other people interesting.

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Well, if you're not a man in glasses standing in front of me with a tape recorder going like this, I can't see anything. But if you are, then I see perfectly well.

Being a parent is the greatest trust that has been given to human beings.

Selfless giving means forgeting about yourself. It means letting go and doing something crazy.

Just once I want it to be easy and neat. But no, there is never a good decision. I pick what I can live with.

Choose love and don't ever let fear turn you away from your playful heart

Faust: Who holds the devil, let him hold him well, He hardly will be caught a second time.

Remember, when the writers refer to themselves as 'we' and to the reader as 'you,' this is two against one.